Saturday, 30 January 2016

Where is the Line Between Reality and Imagination? Guest Post by MA Demers

While writing my first novel, Baby Jane, which is set in Vancouver, Canada, I wanted to restrict my main male
protagonist to a single detective, Dylan Lewis. In Vancouver, though, homicide
detectives work in pairs, and thus I contrived to have Dylan’s partner, Tom
Farrow, off on holiday for the whole book. So you can imagine my surprise when,
only 48 pages in, I found my imaginary medical examiner asking Dylan, “When’s
Tom back?” “Sunday,” Dylan replies.

Huh?

Tom Farrow did indeed return on Sunday, and
became one of my favourite characters in the book. Question is, why did he come back, and uninvited no less? Was it just my
creative subconscious realizing I needed another foil for Dylan? Or was this
something more intriguing: that Tom existed in another, perhaps parallel, universe,
and I had merely tapped into his existence?

Many moons ago, in university, I studied
comparative religions and was intrigued to learn that the monotone beat of
shamanic drumming induces the brain to produce theta brainwaves, which are the
same brainwaves our brains produce when we dream. “Ecstatic” religions, such as
that of North American Natives, teach us that when we dream we enter the spirit
world, or, more precisely, that we connect with our soul that lives in both the
spirit and the mundane worlds, and as such keeps us connected to the rest of
the universe, that is, to Creation. Our dreams are therefore messages from the
spirit world, from both guardians and foes, or are events we experience in this
parallel dimension.

(In Western medicine many psychologists
suggest their patients keep a dream diary in order to analyze and understand
their problems better; in Native medicine, rather than passively wait for messages
from dreams, shamans — also known as medicine men/women — use the shamanic drum
to enter into a controlled dream state where they can communicate directly
with the spirits to gather information and help the patient.)

If dreaming, then, is really us connecting
to another dimension, then is this also what imagination is? After all, what is
imagination if not a form of controlled dreaming? And if so, what, then, is a
“product of my imagination”? Are my stories and characters manufactured by me,
the writer, or am I merely a stenographer for the universe?

I decided to explore this theme in my
latest novel, The Point Between,
in which a famous mystery writer is murdered only to meet in the afterlife the
lead detective of her novels. Marcus Mantova claims authorship of the now dead
Lily Harrington’s stories, and his assertions send her into a crisis: what, if
any, talent had she then possessed?
And if none, then why her? As Lily ponders in the book, “she must have had some aptitude for the job … you
certainly don’t hire a mechanic to perform brain surgery, or vice versa.” So is
Marcus really the author of her
books, or is she the author and he merely her muse?

Ironically, while I was writing the novel
the experience I had with Baby Jane
repeated itself. The Point Between
was supposed to be centered around Lily and Marcus, but a woman named Penelope
Winters inserted herself into the story. Like Tom Farrow, Penelope arrived
fully formed, her looks and personality both clear as a bell. When she first
popped into my head, I thought it would be fun if she, too, had been a
character in Lily’s novels, but Penelope was having none of that:

“I’m a dead Whatcom County homicide
detective.”

“But wouldn’t it be cool if you were
Marcus’s great love from early in the series? You know, the one who got away
and so now he’s a womanizing narcissist who can never love again, like Vesper
and James Bond?”

“No. I am
Marcus’s ex, but I’m a dead Whatcom County homicide detective.”

“Huh. Okay, then.”

And thus I found myself in the rather
bizarre situation of experiencing the very experience I was writing about even
as I was writing it:

“[Penelope] had appeared uninvited, like
some of the characters in Lily’s novels who seemed to write themselves into the
narrative, leaving her wondering where they had come from, what far recess of
her mind had conjured up the apparition. Or the way a minor character, written
in to bridge a gap or maybe create a red herring, would then take on a life of
their own and become central to the plot. It was always a spooky feeling when
such events occurred, and each time they did Lily would assign responsibility
to her muse, yet this muse never had a name or even a face, was nothing more
than a mechanism to explain the inexplicable.”

So the next time you’re reading a novel and
imagining yourself in the story, or imagining the hero or heroine as a real
person in your own life, ask yourself what if? What if he or she is real? What if your alleged fantasy
life is actually taking place — but in another dimension? Would that make your
dreams more real? More possible?

And while you’re reading a book, consider
this: is it possible someone somewhere else is reading — or writing — about
you?

M. A. Demers is a writer, editor and self-publishing
consultant with a diverse clientele as far away as Australia and Columbia. In
2011 she self-published her first novel, Baby
Jane, followed by The Global Indie Author: Your Guide to the World of
Self-Publishing, now in its third edition, and the concise To Kindle in Ten Steps: The Easy Way to
Format, Create and Self-Publish an eBook on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.
The Point Between is her second
novel. She lives near Vancouver, Canada.

About
Baby Jane

There’s more to good and evil than meets the
eye...

When human remains are found in her pre-war
fixer-upper in an east Vancouver neighbourhood, Claire Dawson’s grand plans to
fix the house—and her life—take a disturbing turn. Suspicious there might exist
a relationship between the discovery and her own tragic past, Claire insinuates
herself into the investigation, unknowingly placing herself in harm’s way and Homicide’s
Detective Dylan Lewis in an impossible conflict of interest. And when Dylan’s
grandmother, a Coast Salish medicine woman, wades into the mystery, challenging
the demon whose earthly form is behind the murder, the three find themselves
embroiled in a high-stakes battle where lines are blurred and worlds
collide—but souls are ultimately freed.

About The Point
Between

It’s hard to tell fact from fiction,
especially when you’re a ghost …

Bestselling mystery novelist Lily
Harrington has been found hanging in her home in the tiny, oddball haven of
Point Roberts, Washington, and all signs point to suicide. Worried the truth
will be buried with her, Lily teams up with Marcus Mantova, the sexy detective
of her novels, to influence the investigation and catch her killer. Yet no
sooner has Lily come to terms with the existence of Marcus, the womanizing
egomaniac she had thought a product of her imagination, than dead Whatcom
County detective Penelope Winters also worms her way onto the case. Lies,
frauds, and competing agendas take Lily on a roller-coaster ride over heaven
and earth until, at last, she discovers the truth and another chance at life.

15 comments:

What an entertaining and fascinating post. You also made me laugh and have got my day off to a great start. I was really interested in what you said about the beats of the Shaman drum. I come from a teaching background and music which has four beats to the bar enhances learning. Music is a powerful thing

Thoroughly absorbing, Michelle, and, as Wendy says, fascinating. The sort of alchemy you're describing is a familiar experience. The way some characters establish (in fact, commandeer) their 'reality' is astonishing. So much so that it may seem hubristic for us to claim to have 'created' them. And yet that's what we've done. One of the characters in my WIP recently intruded into the narrative and forced me (yes, that's not too strong a word) to alter my proposed dénouement. I have to admit, too, that his version was better than mine. I look forward to reading your books.

What a fascinating post. I think most writers experience their characters taking over the development of the story and dictating decisions we might not necessarily have made. I also use a technique when I'm stuck on a scene, of playing it over in my mind as I go to sleep, and when I wake in the morning it's fully developed. I just have to grab it before it escapes! In the meantime I've added a shaman drum to my shopping list!

I love this post - and identify with it very strongly. Plot solutions sometimes come to me in dreams, or rather not so much solutions as the answers to questions, so that I wake up thinking 'oh THAT'S what happened!' And sometimes I find myself 'seeing' a character very clearly in a dream. In my last novel, the Physic Garden, an agent had suggested that it should be rewritten in the third person in order to make it more marketable, but the main character/narrator just wasn't having it. And eventually I simply had to let him go on telling his story. Which was, as it turned out, very much the right decision! Your books sound intriguing. I'll definitely be seeking them out.

This resonated with me, too. Characters sometimes take on a life of their own, and I love it when they do - when they stop being puppets and become players. I've become strangely close to many of my characters, and think of them as being my friends. One in particular I was almost in love with.

Yes a fascinating post, and a great idea for a crime thriller too incidentally! Characters do take over at times though I suppose they could be a way for our subconscious minds to express themselves and sidestep our conscious control - or they could indeed be critters from another reality!

Thanks to everyone for their comments. This topic has been on my mind much of late, probably because the subject features heavily in The Point Between, but also because I've been in a constant battle this past year over what to write: do I start writing more commercial fare and for a younger demographic (who are easier to market to), or do I keep writing the stories that come to me, that the universe -- or its characters -- seem to be dictating? As a writer, do you really get to choose what you write?

Yes, I echo much of what others have said. I've actually had the experience of three characters ganging up on me together and telling me I'd better change the way the story was going or they wouldn't cooperate any more, I'm reminďed of that marvellous post-modern novel by Jasper fforde, The Well of Lost Plots, where two characters called Ib and Ob, ompletely featureless blobs, obtrude into 'real'life and, as the novel continues, gradually shape themselves into completely realised characters, though with absolutely nothing to do with how the novel resolves itself.

I really loved this post, and like others here, identify with it. I'm sure I've already told the story of the old lady in a nursing home who turns out to be one of the pivotal characters in my Y/A novel, WOLFSONG, and of how, months later, and well after the book was published, how I was contacted out of the blue by the relatives of an old lady in a nursing home in Paris wondering if I might be a relative? Yes I do have a French surname, but not that one. Thanks, Denis, for mentioning 'The Well of Lost Plots'- just found it in David's library. Never read it - now I will.And I MUST look into Shamanic drumming - fascinating.

I just discovered to my horror that there was a glitch at CreateSpace that rendered the paperback version of "Baby Jane" as temporarily unavailable on all Amazon sites. Should have that fixed by tomorrow hopefully.

Enid, you will meet the Cheshire Cat who, as a result of local government reorganisation, is now the Unitary Authority of Warrington Cat. In his capacity as gatekeeper to the W of L Ps, he signs his letters U.A.W Cat. Read and enjoy!

The brain doesn't access another dimension. The brain IS another dimension. And ideas happen fractions of a second before we are aware of them, so in that sense it's true to say that we (the conscious self) do not create them. Our brain creates them, and then notifies us. That's why it sometimes seems that ideas have come from elsewhere. But the elsewhere is inside our heads.

Interesting idea, Nick Green, but if the brain is another dimension, how does one explain its physical nature in this dimension? If our brain is inside our head, and WE are in this dimension, how can our brains be in another dimension, or be another dimension itself?

Er, well... I suppose I meant 'mind' rather than brain. Your mind is another dimension, just as Microsoft Word is another dimension on your PC screen (you can contain thousands of pages without using up any more physical space in 'this' dimension). Our minds are virtual worlds, like computer worlds only far more complex. And clearly much stuff goes on in them of which we are not aware. For instance, just the other night in a dream I bought a seven-litre bottle of banana milkshake from Peter Falk (of 'Columbo' fame).

Here's an interesting tibdit: the ancient Greeks believed that the mind was not the brain but in the spaces between the physical matter, and therefore contained in the spinal fluid.

But the thing about Microsoft Word: the more pages you have open in a document the more space it does take up. Perhaps not in the sense that your screen gets bigger but the pages use up more of your RAM. So it is taking up space somewhere.

However, the interesting thing -- and I think this is where you are going with your analogy -- is that regardless of how much knowledge we do or do not possess, our physical brain does not change in size: increasing our volume of ideas/knowledge in our brain does not increase its physical dimensions. But is that really a function of mass or of permutations? In other words, we do not need to increase the physical size of our brain in order to increase its capacity because memory is not a function of storage space, as it is on a computer, but a function of synaptic relationships between billions of neurons whose possible permutations are incalculable. And if we damage a part of that physical object, we do lose function, memory, and creative/cognitive ability. So the mind IS, at least partly, contained in the brain.